The Information

Leopold Aschenbrenner. Art by Clark Miller; screenshot via YouTube.

Google’s Cloud Partner for Its AI Chips Is in Talks to Raise $700 Million

By Anissa Gardizy, Cory Weinberg and Miles Kruppa · Dec 4, 2025 10:29am PST

Fluidstack, a cloud provider aiding Google’s AI chip push, is in talks to raise more than $700 million in new financing, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. A one-year-old investment fund started by ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner is in talks to lead the financing, one of the people said. Aschenbrenner’s fund,... Fluidstack, a cloud provider aiding Google’s AI chip push, is in talks to raise more than $700...

Photo via K2 Space

Satellite Startup Set to Quadruple Valuation to $3 Billion

By Cory Weinberg · Dec 3, 2025 12:42pm PST · 1 comment

K2 Space, a young satellite manufacturing startup stocked with former SpaceX engineers, is raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that would roughly quadruple its valuation to about $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter and a corporate filing. The round underlines how defense and space investing has... K2 Space, a young satellite manufacturing startup stocked with former SpaceX engineers, is...

Art via Clark Miller

Microsoft Lowers Sales Staff’s Growth Targets For Newer AI Software

By Aaron Holmes · Dec 3, 2025 6:00am PST · 8 comments

Executives at Microsoft and other enterprise software firms heralded 2025 as the year artificial intelligence would be capable of automating tasks that involve multiple steps, such as generating dashboards based on company sales data. But as the year comes to a close, Microsoft has lowered expectations for how quickly it can get customers to... Executives at Microsoft and other enterprise software firms heralded 2025 as the year artificial...

Anthropic in Advanced Talks to Buy Developer Tool Startup in First Acquisition

By Sri Muppidi · Dec 2, 2025 9:11am PST · 1 comment

Anthropic in Advanced Talks to Buy Developer Tool Startup in First Acquisition

By Sri Muppidi · Dec 2, 2025 9:11am PST · 1 comment

Anthropic is in advanced discussions to buy Bun, a maker of software used to run and manage code more efficiently, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. The artificial intelligence company is in talks to pay in the low hundreds of millions of dollars for the startup, which would be Anthropic’s first acquisition, according to the... Anthropic is in advanced discussions to buy Bun, a maker of software used to run and manage code...

Marvell headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty

Marvell In Advanced Talks to Buy Celestial AI in Multibillion Deal

By Valida Pau and Anissa Gardizy · Dec 1, 2025 8:24pm PST

Marvell is in advanced talks to buy Santa Clara-based chip startup Celestial AI in a cash-and-stock deal worth several billion dollars, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Under the deal being discussed, Marvell would pay several billion dollars upfront for the startup, which has yet to generate any revenue, according to... Marvell is in advanced talks to buy Santa Clara-based chip startup Celestial AI in a...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Image via Getty, art via Clark Miller

OpenAI CEO Declares ‘Code Red’ to Combat Threats to ChatGPT, Delays Ads Effort

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo · Dec 1, 2025 8:11pm PST · 12 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday told employees he was declaring a “code red” to marshal more resources to improve ChatGPT as threats rise from Google and other artificial intelligence competitors, according to an internal memo. As a result, OpenAI plans to delay other initiatives, such as advertising, Altman said. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday told employees he was declaring a “code red” to marshal more...

Photo by Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Amazon Tests Ultrafast Delivery Offering

By Ann Gehan · Dec 1, 2025 1:01pm PST

Amazon is testing a new ultrafast delivery offering for groceries and other daily essentials in major urban areas in the U.S., a critical test of the e-commerce giant’s ambitions to sell more daily staples to consumers and supercharge its grocery business. In recent months, Amazon has approached large consumer packaged goods brands to ask them... Amazon is testing a new ultrafast delivery offering for groceries and other daily essentials in...

Art by Mike Sullivan

As AWS Preps New AI Models, Relations With Anthropic Get Complicated

By Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 1, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Art by Mike Sullivan

As AWS Preps New AI Models, Relations With Anthropic Get Complicated

By Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 1, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

There’s a lot about Amazon’s efforts to put itself in the middle of the AI frenzy that hasn’t gone to plan over the past couple years. Its attempt to develop Amazon AI models that can compete with the most cutting-edge technologies from OpenAI, Google and others is still a work in progress. To buy time to improve Amazon’s own models, its cloud... There’s a lot about Amazon’s efforts to put itself in the middle of the AI frenzy that hasn’t...

Getty Images

ByteDance Challenges Alibaba’s Reign in China’s AI Cloud Market

By Juro Osawa · Dec 1, 2025 4:00am PST

ByteDance is best known in the U.S. as the owner of TikTok. In China, the tech giant is also becoming known as a major force in cloud computing—so much so that it is now threatening Alibaba Group, long the undisputed king of cloud services in China. In one sign of the intensifying rivalry, executives at Alibaba have started to focus on the... ByteDance is best known in the U.S. as the owner of TikTok. In China, the tech giant is also...

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi. AP Images

Databricks Boosts Sales Forecast, Driving Valuation to $134 Billion

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 30, 2025 11:00am PST · 4 comments

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi has been more vocal than other Silicon Valley executives about the dangers of an AI bubble. His company’s new $5 billion round of fundraising, at a higher valuation than ever, epitomizes the risks and rewards of the boom: While sales are growing faster than forecast, AI development costs are squeezing gross profit... Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi has been more vocal than other Silicon Valley executives about the...

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Courtesy of Amazon.

Amazon’s AI Crackdown Hits More AI Search Startups

By Ann Gehan · Nov 28, 2025 6:00am PST · 2 comments

Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, should be a big business event for AI-powered shopping search startup Dupe. People looking for a bargain can use Dupe to search for items across lots of shopping sites—including Amazon—either by typing in phrases to describe what they want or uploading a photo. Dupe says... Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, should be a big business event for...

Art by Clark Miller; Getty Images, YouTube.

ServiceNow in Advanced Talks to Buy Security Startup For At Least $1 Billion

By Valida Pau, Aaron Holmes and Katie Roof · Nov 26, 2025 4:50pm PST

Art by Clark Miller; Getty Images, YouTube.

ServiceNow in Advanced Talks to Buy Security Startup For At Least $1 Billion

By Valida Pau, Aaron Holmes and Katie Roof · Nov 26, 2025 4:50pm PST

ServiceNow, an IT, HR and finance software provider, is in advanced talks to buy five-year-old security startup Veza for more than $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Veza’s subscription software helps businesses see which of their employees, as well as AI agents that automate software tasks, have access to certain... ServiceNow, an IT, HR and finance software provider, is in advanced talks to buy five-year-old...

Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Trump Family Crypto Deal Runs Aground

By Michael Roddan · Nov 26, 2025 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. rang the bell at Nasdaq’s New York headquarters in August to celebrate the announcement of a deal that could have netted the family a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. The president’s oldest sons were combining their crypto startup, World Liberty Financial, with a publicly traded Canadian company, Alt5... Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. rang the bell at Nasdaq’s New York headquarters in August to...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

China Is Slowly but Surely Breaking Free From Nvidia

By Qianer Liu · Nov 26, 2025 4:00am PST

ByteDance bought more Nvidia chips than any other Chinese company in 2025, according to three people with direct knowledge of its purchases. Racing to secure computing power for its billion-plus users and fearing Washington might suddenly cut off supply, the TikTok parent hoarded its stock of the chips. ByteDance’s fears about a supply crunch... ByteDance bought more Nvidia chips than any other Chinese company in 2025, according to three...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Getty Images.

OpenAI Forecasts Nearly as Many ChatGPT Subscribers as Spotify by 2030

By Sri Muppidi · Nov 25, 2025 4:55pm PST · 2 comments

To boost ChatGPT revenue, OpenAI is following a playbook enterprise apps Zoom and Slack have used to increase paid users. It’s hooking up most of its users—which now number more than 800 million—with the free version of the chatbot and then trying to convince their employers to sign enterprisewide subscriptions, said a... To boost ChatGPT revenue, OpenAI is following a playbook enterprise apps Zoom and Slack have used...

The Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Tex. in September. Getty Images.

Oracle-Linked Borrowing Binge Worries Lenders

By Miles Kruppa · Nov 25, 2025 6:00am PST

The Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Tex. in September. Getty Images.

Oracle-Linked Borrowing Binge Worries Lenders

By Miles Kruppa · Nov 25, 2025 6:00am PST

Construction lending was a relatively sleepy corner of Wall Street until Oracle stepped up to become one of OpenAI’s biggest cloud providers, leading to a flood of debt to help build new data centers for the database giant. The volume of borrowing is making some lenders leery. Companies building data centers for Oracle have borrowed at least... Construction lending was a relatively sleepy corner of Wall Street until Oracle stepped up to...

Art by Clark Miller

Google Further Encroaches on Nvidia’s Turf With New AI Chip Push

By Amir Efrati, Erin Woo and Anissa Gardizy · Nov 24, 2025 2:43pm PST · 19 comments

Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip business. For years, the search giant has rented out its own AI chips, known as tensor processing units, to cloud customers who use them in its Google Cloud data centers. Now, though, Google has begun pitching some of those customers—including Meta... Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip...

Art by Mike Sullivan

The Twins Pushing Elon Musk’s Plans to Replace X Staff With Grok

By Theo Wayt · Nov 24, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Last month, Elon Musk’s X laid off half of the engineering team tasked with building and running systems to fight spam, influence campaigns and illegal content, among other trust and safety issues, according to two people with direct knowledge of the cuts. The team had already been whittled down to less than 20 people before the layoffs,... Last month, Elon Musk’s X laid off half of the engineering team tasked with building and running...

Veza CEO Tarun Thakur. Screenshot via YouTube.

Cyber Startup Veza in Talks With Potential Buyers for $1 Billion-Plus Sale

By Valida Pau and Katie Roof · Nov 21, 2025 6:01pm PST

Veza, whose software helps businesses monitor employees’ and AI agents’ access to internal data, has been talking to potential buyers about a sale that could value the startup at more than $1 billion, according to people familiar with the discussions. A sale at that level would be a premium to its price in April, when investors led by New... Veza, whose software helps businesses monitor employees’ and AI agents’ access to internal data,...

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Google

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo · Nov 20, 2025 4:00pm PST · 14 comments

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Google

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo · Nov 20, 2025 4:00pm PST · 14 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month that Google’s recent progress in artificial intelligence could “create some temporary economic headwinds for our company,” though he added that OpenAI would emerge ahead. After OpenAI researchers heard that Google had created a new AI that appears to have leapfrogged OpenAI’s in the way it was... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month that Google’s recent progress in artificial...